He knows chasing those fantasies is only going to end in disaster, but he can't seem to stop his self-destructive spiral. He’s a transgender man struggling to come to terms with the intersection of his identity and his sexual fantasies as a submissive. He needs someone to take control before he loses it completely.

Daz can take control. He can teach Stefan everything there is to know about sex and submission, but for some reason, he can't get inside Stefan's head. Daz can stop Stefan’s self-destruction but not the fear that fuels it.

Stefan needs to know who he is before he can accept what he is. And it's Yannis -- Daz's aromantic, asexual, stern, and sarcastic partner -- who has the answer.

EXCERPT:Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

Stefan came, shaking and sweaty despite the cold. The cage on the door was suddenly a promise. The deep voice in his memory was suddenly a need, and even as the aftershocks of his orgasm rolled away, he wanted more. He wanted to be filled, fucked, used, discarded, kept, owned, commandeered, he wanted to be a thing, wanted to belong ...

He scrambled blindly for the phone. The cold air washed over his arse, punishing him for his desire -- but for once, Stefan didn't care. So he was fucked up and sick -- so what? He'd be sick if it would give him that reality; he'd be disgusting if it could give him that painful pleasure ...

I imagined you kept me locked in my flat like a sex slave for use when your partner is out of town and I got off to it.

The text was a rush of emotion and longing, and the moment he sent it, Stefan regretted it. He could have maybe persuaded Daz into sex, maybe, from the two kisses they'd shared, but --

The phone rang, and Stefan jumped so hard that he dropped it.

“Shit! Shit-shit-shit -- hello?”

“Don't ever text me again.”

His heart stopped beating. The air vanished, the vacuum left behind even colder. He was standing in the middle of his living room, wet cock and fingers slowly chilling, in nothing but a T-shirt -- and that voice stopped him dead, not even twenty-four hours after he'd first heard it.

“What part of, I have a plaything already, did you not understand?”

“I do understand it,” Stefan whispered, “but I want you anyway.”

“You want me to what?”

Stefan closed his eyes.

“To use me. I'm not asking for anything more.”

“What are you asking for?”

“I just -- I just masturbated imagining you'd come to my flat and fuck me like I was a sex slave. Lock me in naked, and only bring me food when you'd come to use me. Fuck me any way you wanted, whenever you wanted, and hurt me and beat me and -- and you were so nice and normal with your boyfriend, you let your dark side out on me, and it had to be a secret so nobody else could ever even know I existed, and ...”

“Is that what you want?”

Stefan whimpered.

“Tell me what you want.”

The air was too thin. Stefan's chest was working too hard.

He wanted --

“I -- I want you to use me like a sex aid,” he whispered, and the words were both humiliating and hot as they left his mouth. “I want you to lock me in my bathroom until you have need of me. I want you to hurt me and tell me I like it, and you'll be right. I want you to -- to own me, so I have to do what you say, no matter what it is, and when I disobey you, I want you to punish me.”

“You want to submit to me.”

“And I want you to make me.”

“And you think I want that? Or I have time for that?”

“Please.”

“I met you in a bar last night.”

“And you should punish me for being out of control, then make me thank you for looking after me,” Stefan whispered.

“You think you can tell me what to do?”

“No, Sir.”

There was a long pause.

Then, quite suddenly: “Tomorrow morning, eight fifteen sharp, be at the house. No earlier, no later.”

Stefan's heart leapt. “Really?”

“I don't like repeating myself.”

“Um, no, Sir. Sorry, Sir. Um -- what if I don't remember where it is?”